I'm a Truck Driver

It has been a few days since I last talked to all of you. I have been all over the place since then. I made it to Sturgis, MI on Sunday morning and sat at a Walmart all day. It is difficult to sleep during the day, but I managed to get a little sleep. I did not have to make my delivery until 12:30 in the morning, but arrived at the customer at 11:00pm Sunday. No problem. They unloaded the trailer quickly and I was on my way back to the Walmart to finish my nap. Was up at about 5:00 and got on the board for my next load. I then went back to bed. I got up at around 7:30 and got the computer out to check email and play a little. I found out that I was number 23 on the Taylor board. Taylor is one of our terminals located up close to Detroit. Anyway, I thought I would be sitting for days. No such thing. About an hour later I received a message on my Qualcomm assigning me a new load. Next destination; Niles, MI, only 50 miles away. So, I headed over there to pick up several rolls of wire weighing 38,000 lbs. I got over there, got the wire loaded and was on my way to Flora, IL, about 310 miles south. At least I was not going to Canada. I was happy about that. It rained most of the day, but it was only a light drizzle and did not cause any problems. I had to be down to Flora by 7:00pm. Arrived there at 5:00pm, got unloaded immediately, and was ready to go. While I was driving to Flora I received a Qualcomm giving me another load immediately after the Flora load was delivered. I got a load from Salem, IL to Oklahoma City. That was going to be 570 miles. So, this morning I picked up the load in Salem and headed out. My route was going to take me through Joplin. I was not real happy about that because we are required to stop at the terminal to get our trucks and trailers inspected. And Joplin almost always finds something wrong. So I was worried that they would find a problem and I would have to give up my load. Guess what? They found an oil leak on the truck and there was a problem with the trailer. I had no idea how long it would take to fix the truck, and I my load had to be delivered to Oklahoma City by 3:00am tomorrow. I felt it would not be fair to another driver if I waited to give up the load and then someone would have to jump through hoops to get the load delivered. So, I gave up the load. Oh well. I prayed that the Lord would not allow my truck to have a problem. But, you know what? It is better that the problem was found here in Joplin and not by my truck breaking down on the interstate. The Lord knows best. So, here I sit in Joplin, waiting for my truck to be fixed. Won't happen tonight. I will get out of here eventually.

Now, have you ever heard of a qualcomm? Some of you may have. It is a communications devise that all trucks at Conway have. It is like a little keyboard with a screen. We communicate with our fleet managers and others at headquarters, letting us know about load assignments, and letting the drivers communicate when their loads have been delivered and when we are ready for another load. It is a neat little deal. When we are driving we often will get a message on the qualcomm. It makes a little chirping sound and then a voice comes on telling us we have a message. Instead of having to stop the truck to find out what the message is, we can push a button and a voice will read the message to us. It is a computer voice, and sometimes pronounces words funny, but it does a pretty good job letting us know what is going on. I will have to take a picture of it and put it on one of my posts.

Well, that is all I have for today. You all be safe out there and God Bless you!!!